By Pauline Kamiri Malawi’s president, Lazarus Chakwera who is also chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has called for the lifting of all sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. In a statement, Chakwera says “SADC wishes to reaffirm its solidarity with Zimbabwe and to collectively voice its concerns on the disapproval of the prolonged sanctions…
By Pauline Kamiri The US has suspended $700 million in emergency funding for Sudan in response to the ongoing military coup attempt in the country. The United states is demanding that the Sudanese military immediately release civilian leaders and find a solution to restore the transitional government. The emergency funds had been approved by Congress…
Former US President Donald Trump is set to launch a new social media platform, called Truth Social. He says the platform will “stand up to the tyranny of “Big Tech.” The move comes almost a year after Donald trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook and You Tube following riots at the US capitol in January. “I…
Africa, the world’s second largest continent with a population of about 1.3 billion people still lacks lags behind when it comes to leadership skills and training for the young people. More so, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the reality that the world’s systems are somewhat very fragile. Beyond the health and human tragedy, the…
By Dr. Youssef Travaly The future is intelligent: By 2030, artificial intelligence (AI) will add $15.7 trillion to the global GDP, with $6.6 trillion projected to be from increased productivity and $9.1 trillion from consumption effects. Furthermore, augmentation, which allows people and AI to work together to enhance performance, “will create $2.9 trillion of business…
By Pauline Kamiri The humanitarian crisis and ongoing war in Ethiopia’s north of the Tigray region could affect the country’s trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). An executive order signed by President Joe Biden seeks to slap harsh sanctions on sides that are involved in Ethiopia’s war in the Tigray region….
By Dumi Jere Many years ago, I remember reading the book “Our Iceberg Is Melting” by John Kotter, the award-winning author from Harvard Business School. The story was set in Antarctica, on an iceberg where a colony of emperor penguins had lived for as long as they could remember. This was the only home they…
By Pauline Kamiri Pandora papers are the latest and largest of a series of major leaks of financial data that have convulsed the offshore world since 2013. The cache includes 11.9 million files from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts I tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland and…
Civil society, not governments or tech companies, should protect online free speech By Kofi Yeboah In Nigeria, when social media companies failed to comply with governments’ requests, the government resorted to authoritarian models of control to restrict civic and democratic engagement in public policies. When authoritarian models of control are introduced, some social media companies succumb or resist. Twitter —…
At the just concludedGlobal Commodities Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, policymakers yet again deliberated on numerous issues that have plagued developing nations with particular emphasis on commodity exporters in the wake of arguably the economic shock of the century. As the ‘green energy transition’ train gains steam however, it came as no surprise that a session…
By Pauline Kamiri African hopes of the African Continental Free Trade Area becoming a success came alive again on January 1, 2021. This is after a six-month delay as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been seen as a game-changer for Africa, with the potential to create the world’s largest…
According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), commodity dependence increased over the last decade from 93 countries in 2008–2009 to 101 in 2018–2019. The latest revelation going as far as highlighting that the nominal value of world commodity exports reached $4.38 trillion in 2018–2019 which is a 20 per cent increase…
Ghana defied the pandemic to record $829.29 million worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first half of 2021, a clear signal of the West African country’s attractiveness to investors. The FDI amount of $829.29 million was a remarkable increase of 32.15 percent in inbound FDI compared to the FDI value of $627.52 million…
(This is a transcript of the podcast posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2021. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on this link https://www.buzzsprout.com/1655965/9116950) DUMI JERE: Greetings ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Weekly Beat. Firstly, I’m coming to you from Johannesburg in South Africa. Joining me is Maggie Mutesi,…
Over the last twenty years, China has strengthened its relationship with Africa by providing low-interest loans, constructing mega infrastructure projects, buying more oil, bauxite, and natural gas, and of course, exporting cheap manufactured products. It’s now almost impossible to separate China from Africa. And some African countries like Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and the Republic of Congo…
Zimbabwe has launched a $15 million cattle ranching project, as part of the country’s efforts to raise the value of the livestock sector to $1.9 billion by 2025. This project is in line with the government’s Livestock Growth Plan, a component of the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy. In it, Zimbabwe aims to have…
With cities and towns expanding every day, African governments are looking to collect geospatial information that could assist in prioritizing goals, from basic service delivery to ambitious infrastructure plans. Geospatial information contains location information, and uses artificial intelligence and aerial or satellites to enable information about cities to be linked together based on their shared…
Even before the coronavirus pandemic swept through the continent, African countries were rapidly raising their debt ceilings. Heads of State flocked to China, as the world’s second largest economy granted loans at will, with little, if any, preconditions. Faced with a first recession in 30 years, the continent’s appetite for debt hasn’t receded. In fact…
Decades of isolation and authoritarian rule have strangled Eritrea’s economic progress, and now the government is encouraging large-scale cultivation of cactus to help alleviate the human suffering and, in the future, increase export revenues. Cactus is believed to have originated from Central America. Spanish conquerors acknowledged the presence of prickly pears (beles) as soon as…
(This is a transcript of the podcast posted on Monday, August 23th, 2021. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on this link https://open.spotify.com/episode/65EOEkIMxmHoqG8veXjMHe?si=ma3YD4a5RWeUomTFiP9ycw&dl_branch=1&nd=1) DUMI JERE: Greetings ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Weekly Beat. My name is Dumi Jere, and I’m coming to you from South Africa. And with…